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Seven Soldiers

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The unsung Seven Soldiers of Victory... Stripesy and Wing are off fighting for the last slot.

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The very first super hero team in The DCU was the Justice Society of America. Following the success of that team, a second was created, named the Seven Soldiers of Victory. Much like the Justice Society, the Seven Soldiers were heroes from several DC anthology comics. The Seven Soldiers was made up of:

The Crimson Avenger: Lee Travis, newspaper publisher by day and crime-fighter by night who battles crime with his fists and with his crimson gas gun. His chauffeur Wing acts as his sidekick, and is the unofficial eighth member of the team.

Vigilante: Greg Sanders (later Saunders), singing cowboy, who adopted the identity of the Vigilante after he brought his fathers killers to justice. Sanders is an excellent hand to hand fighter, trick shooter, sharpshooter, horseman and motorcycle rider, and an expert with the lariat.

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The Star Spangled Kid: Wealthy Sylvester Pemberton, secretly fighting crime with the aid of his acrobatic skills and hand to hand combat prowess. He and his adult sidekick Stripesy have a series of codes worked out for their various fighting maneuvers, and a mechanical car named the Star Rocket Racer that can change into a jet.

Green Arrow and Speedy: The Golden Age Oliver Queen and Roy Harper differ in many details from the modern version of these characters, but they are still incredibly talented archers and use this talent to fight crime.

Shining Knight: Sir Justin, a knight of King Arthur, was given by Merlin a suit of magical armor that would protect him from all harm, and a magical sword that would cut through anything. Merlin also gave Justins horse wings and the ability to fly. Justin was frozen for centuries and revived in the 1940s, where he applies his honor as a knight to fighting crime in the present day.

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Most of their adventures would follow a standard format: the team would meet in the first chapter of each issue, split up and fight the mastermind's henchmen for five chapters, then unite at the end to defeat the main villain. Criminal mastermind The Hand was responsible for the team's formation, after which they dealt with such criminals as the Black Star, Dr. Doome, and the Sixth Sense. There were a few attempts to vary the formula in later issues, with team members turned against each other in Leading Comics #7, or the team members working with someone other than their usual partner in #9 due to being shipwrecked and scattered across some islands. The Seven Soldiers appeared in the first 14 issues of Leading Comics, but the series ended when Leading changed to an all-humor format with issue 15.

Years later in the 1970s, during the celebration of the 100th meeting of the Justice League of America (i.e. the 100th issue), the League is summoned to Earth-Two by the JSA in order to help them combat a giant ethereal hand. They summoned a mysterious Oracle for help, who revealed that the Seven Soldiers had died fighting an entity called The Nebula Man which was created by their arch-foe, the Hand. Because of the similarities between the giant hand and the Nebula Man, it was concluded that the team who defeated the Nebula Man would be needed. However, in the Soldiers' final battle they were apparently erased from existence and no one could remember who they were. The Oracle explained that following the defeat of the Nebula Man, the seven of the eight heroes were scattered in time, with the last one having perished during the battle. The JSA and JLA traveled through time to recover the Soldiers and help them build a new Nebula Rod, while they were opposed by the giant hand's creator. The villain turned out to be the Hand, now calling himself the Iron Hand. It was eventually revealed that the fallen hero, The Unknown Soldier of Victory, was Wing who had to sacrifice himself to use the Nebula Rod and defeat the Nebula Man. Knowing that whoever used the Nebula Rod would have to die, the android hero, Red Tornado, stole the rod and sacrificed himself to destroy the hand.

Then the Crisis on Infinite Earths happened. Post-Crisis, the Soldiers still existed, more or less. Because the original team were all Golden Age heroes, their history had to be changed: Green Arrow and Speedy were never on the team, Vigilante's sidekick Stuff the Chinatown Kid was officially a member and Vigilante's mentor Billy Gunn was present but was never a member, and the final member was an archer called Alias The Spider. The Spider was really a villain working with the Iron Hand and sabotaged the Nebula Rod, killed Billy Gunn and attempted to kill Wing. The Soldiers still succeeded, Wing died, the Soldiers were scattered through time (But this time Vigilante was found after he spent twenty years in the Old West).

A second Seven Soldiers team, made up of Batgirl, Blackhawk, Metamorpho, Mento, Deadman, Adam Strange, and a new Shining Knight gathered together only once, in a story of questionable continuity (the 2000 event series Silver Age). The true successors of the Seven Soldiers of Victory 'formed' much more recently, about one week before the events of Infinite Crisis...

Their teamwork focuses less on the "team" and more on the "work" part.

The "Seven Soldiers" maxi-series, written by Grant Morrison, started in 2005 and ended in 2006. With two bookend issues, the bulk of the series was comprised of seven four issue miniseries, each one focusing on each one of the titular seven members. This series is notable in that none of the members of the team ever meet each other (with one or two exceptions).

The series starts with the son of the original Spider, Thomas Dalt AKA "I, Spyder", visiting Slaughter Swamp outside of Gotham City, and encountering the "Seven Unknown Men of Slaughter Swamp" who have chosen him for a certain task. Meanwhile, an about to retire Greg Saunders AKA Vigilante (who was later revealed to be finally submitting to his werewolfism) creates a new Seven Soldiers of Victory team, made up of Spyder, a new Boy Blue, Merry the Gimmick Girl (called Gimmix), Dyno-Mite Dan, and the Whip to defeat a giant spider that was supposed to have been destroyed during Saunders' tenure in the old West. The team kill the spider, but in turn are decimated by the mysterious Sheeda, lead by the Neh-Buh-Loh Man, who have come to destroy the world in "The Harrowing".

Each of the miniseries focuses on each member:

Zatanna: After the events of Identity Crisis came to light and an incident in which she was indirectly responsible for the deaths of several of her friends and the release of a mysterious shape-shifting demon, Zatanna has lost all confidence in herself. But after meeting a mysterious young girl who asks to be her apprentice, Zatanna begins to travel down a path to learn the secrets of her father's legacy and regain her resolve. However, she soon discovers that her new apprentice is not entirely what she seems...

Shining Knight: In the age of King Arthur Dragonhead, young Sir Ystin (pronounced Justin) and the flying horse Vanguard invade the mysterious Castle Revolving belonging to the Sheeda to kill their queen and recover one of the Seven Imperishable Treasures, the Cauldron of Rebirth. In order to ensure its safety, Ystin tosses the cauldron out of the castle and escapes, but ends up in modern times due to Castle Revolving's time traveling capabilities. After coming to terms with the loss of Camelot and all of its knights, Ystin goes forth to search for a way to end the Sheeda. Meanwhile, Vanguard, who was separated from his rider, is found by a mob boss, who is placed in a mysterious cauldron when ever he dies...

Klarion: In the underground Puritan village of Limbo Town, lives the young Witch-Boy Klarion. After the discovery of a Sheeda rider, the elders of the village announced the sealing of the only gate to the upper "High Market", much to the frustration of Klarion who dreamed of seeing the outside world. Upon seeing the elders turning into a vile monster, Klarion escapes and eventually makes his way to the surface world of New York City. Being approached by a mysterious man named Melmoth to join a gang of childish thugs to steal a giant drill, one Klarion eventually discovers is to be used to enslave Limbo Town...

Manhattan Guardian: Jake Jordan is going through a rough patch in his life: he's been fired from his job as a police officer after a nervous breakdown and his fiance, Carla, holds no respect for him. After his future father-in-law points him to a job for the mysterious "Manhattan Guardian" newspaper, the paper's founder, Ed Stargard, hires Jake as their "in-house superhero". While being the Manhattan Guardian has brought Jake out of his funk, multiple tragedies occur during the job, and Jake goes to confront Stargard. Upon meeting Stargard in person for the first time, Jake is told the story of the Newsboy Legion of Nowhere Street and their encounter with the Sheeda...

Frankenstein: The "Spawn of Frankenstein" himself. After fighting against the evil machinations of Dark Melmoth, Frankenstein (The Monster, who is shown to have taken his creator's name) goes into a deep slumber for many years. Upon an invasion of a high school by the Sheeda, Frankenstein revives to continue his work. After coming across his foe on Mars, Frankenstein discovers that Melmoth is the former Sheeda King trying to defeat his wife and that Frankenstein partially owes his existence to him. After defeating his foe in a particularly spectacular manner, Frankenstein is inducted into the mysterious agency, S.H.A.D.E. who send him on a mission to stop the Sheeda-affiliated Neh-Buh-Loh Man...

Bulleteer: Alix Harrower is an average woman, married to a Mad Scientist husband, Lance. Lance is attempting to create a new metallic superskin to become a superhero so he could live out his fantasy life with his wife or hook up with a superchick he met online. Unfortunately he Jumped at the Call, covering himself with his superskin, accidentally does the same to his wife, and dies in the process. Alix, who survives by a mere fluke, manages to stumble into the life of a C-list superhero while trying to deal with the husband's death and infidelity. All the while, she only really wants to be normal...

Mister Miracle: Shilo Norman, one-time apprentice to the New God Scott Free, is doing pretty good for himself; he has achieved great fame as a master escape artist, just like his mentor. When attempting his greatest stunt yet, escaping a miniature black hole, he encounters the mysterious Metron in the event horizon, who desires to test him. Suddenly he finds himself in an alternate version of his own life, dealing with the problems of his fame while encountering people strangely similar to Kirby's New Gods... particularly one Mr. Dark Side... This series is frequently considered a Stealth Pilot for Final Crisis.

Pre-Crisis Seven Soldiers provides examples of:

All Up to You: Good thing Speedy picked up that time travel device, or else the entire team would have remained in the past at the siege of Troy, where Dr. Doome tried to trap them. Score one for the sidekick.

Anthology: Leading Comics, despite being a team book, is composed of a collection of short stories by different authors and artists. The actual team sections are usually confined to the opening and closing chapters of each issue, though there are occasional exceptions.

Bad Luck Charm / Hat of Power: In Leading Comics #11, gangster Handsome Harry loses what he considers to be his lucky hat. However the narration continually refers to it as an unlucky or evil hat, and bad things happen to everyone that finds it or comes in contact with it over the course of the story.

Badass Normal: Most of the Golden Age team were simply well-trained humans with a few gimmicks. The Shining Knight, however, had a magical sword, magical armor, and a flying horse provided by Merlin.

Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Black Star uses his ray to create giant insects and birds to attack the Seven Soldiers.

The Seven Soldiers returned for the "World's Finest" Convergence mini-series in 2015 along with Scribbly the Boy Cartoonist.

Captain Geographic: The Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy have an American flag motif for their costumes.

Chronoscope: Dr. Doome is able to observe past events with his chronoscope, such as Pickett's Charge or mammoths during an ice age. He also observes his time-displaced allies returning to the past with this machine.

Crazy-Prepared: The Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy have their fighting maneuvers worked out ahead of time, and codes assigned for each one, which they'll call out in the middle of a fight.

Digital Destruction: Despite the generally excellent restoration work done for the DC Archives reprints of the Leading Comics issues, Oliver Queen's hair is often colored brown in volume one of the Archives when it was always blond (yellow) in the original comics.

Divide and Conquer: The Copperhead attempts to turn the team against each other during a hunt for lost Incan gold, and for a while it works, until the various team members work out just what's going on.

Domino Mask: The Crimson Avenger, Green Arrow and Speedy all wear tiny domino masks. Vigilante has a bandanna tied over his nose and mouth, which is probably marginally more effective as a disguise. The Star Spangled Kid wears a cowl, while Stripesy doesn't bother with a mask of any sort, oddly.

Fake Wizardry: In what is probably a reference to The Wizard of Oz, the Wizard of Wisstark is actually an American stage magician who fakes being a wizard to rule the hidden antarctic city. Sadly, he's facing three genuine wizards in the city on the other side of the mountains, and needs the help of the Soldiers to fight them off.

Fish out of Temporal Water: Sir Justin, the Shining Knight, who was originally a knight for King Arthur before being trapped in suspended animation for a few centuries.

The entire team was a Fish out of Temporal Water when they were brought back in JLA #100. The Star-Spangled Kid angsts about being out of his own time in the All-Star Comics revival of the 70s, though he adjusts fairly quickly. Poor Wing is a Dead Sidekick, having sacrificed himself to defeat the Nebula Man.

Follow the Leader: The Golden Age team was created by Mort Weisinger and Mort Meskin when they saw how successful the Justice Society had been.

Fountain of Youth: The Skull is an old man who doesn't want to die, so he hires a thug to steal a ray that will restore his youth. But he doesn't know how to use it, and it ages him to death instead.

Funny Robot: Oscar the robot, the wisecracking invention of a scientist who didn't quite realize what he had created. All his other robots were mindless automatons, but Oscar somehow ended up with a prankster personality.

Genre Shift: Leading Comics switched to the "funny animals" format in Summer 1945. That was the end of the Seven Soldiers.

Heroic Sacrifice: Wing sacrificed his life to end the threat of the Nebula Man, a battle that scattered the other Seven Soldiers all through time, until the combined Justice League and Justice Society were able to rescue them.

Hoist by His Own Petard: The Golden Age team has the distinction of being one of the very few superhero teams deliberately assembled by a villain! The Hand, believing he was dying, recruited five criminals (his "fingers") to pull off spectacular thefts he'd planned. And just to show off how perfect his plans were, the Hand sent invitations to five mystery men and their sidekicks to futilely try to stop the crimes. You can guess how it worked out.

What's even more hilarious in hindsight is that the Hand lived to a ripe old age (till a week before Infinite Crisis in The Bulleteer) and he was killed by Greg Saunders (Vigilante) who was, of course, one of the heroes he had summoned.

The first chapter (of seven) features everyone together and sets up the overall story;

The next five chapters feature an individual member of the team going through his side of the story (Speedy, Stripesy and Wing, all being sidekicks, are paired up with Green Arrow, the Star-Spangled Kid and the Crimson Avenger);

The final chapter unites the team for the finale.

Lost World: While hunting for lost treasure in the Andes, Crimson Avenger and Wing discover a hidden Inca City whose inhabitants still hold a grudge against the Spanish and still live like it's the 1600s.

Love Redeems: Happens to the Sixth Sense's hired henchman whose hearing has been amped up. He's so taken by the music of the person whose gem he's supposed to steal that he falls for her and turns against his employer.

The Man Behind the Man: This is the Black Star's method of operation. He enlists the services of five other criminals to carry out creative robberies, and they know they're working for him, but it's all a smokescreen to divert the attention of the Seven Soldiers and allow him to carry out his real plan.

Really, several issues of Leading Comics feature this trope as a master criminal hires others to work for him. The Hand, Dr. Doome, the Black Star and a few others qualify as The Man Behind the Man.

Master of Disguise: Mr. X, the man of a thousand faces, who bets some other crooks that he can beat all of the Seven Soldiers. Each of them seperately pick up some of his tells, even though they never see his true face during his crimes, and in the end band together to track him down and capture him.

Meaningful Rename: When the original Seven Soldiers returned in the Justice League story, the Hand renamed himself the Iron Hand.

Monumental Battle: Atilla the Hun tries to trap and kill Vigilante on top of Mount Rushmore.

Not Quite Dead: The Hand, who was thought to be killed at the end of Leading Comics #1. He turns up as the villain in Justice League of America #100, thirty years later, having lost his hand in that original accident rather than being killed.

Not Wearing Tights: Vigilante, who dresses as a cowboy. Technically Shining Knight as well, who is wearing armor rather than a super-hero costume.

Obfuscating Disability: The Sixth Sense appears to be a paralyzed man who communicates through a robot that does his dirty work. The cripple turns out to be a mannequin, and the real Sixth Sense, Dr. Brett, is disguised as the robot.

Dr. Doome:The Shining Knight? But that means... the Seven Soldiers of Victory are against me!

Old Hero, New Pals: The Star-Spangled Kid ends up a member of the JSA and wielding Starman's gravity rod after the Seven Soldiers are rescued by the JLA and JSA from being lost in time.

Older Sidekick: The Star Spangled Kid and Vigilante both have a sidekick that's older than they are. The Kid has Stripesy and Vigilante has Billy Gunn.

Omnibus: All fourteen Golden Age adventures of the Seven Soldiers have been restored and collected in three volumes of DC's Archive series. The script for an unfinished 15th adventure is also included.

One Extra Member: The original Seven Soldiers were Green Arrow and Speedy, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Vigilante, Shining Knight, and the Crimson Avenger and Wing. Wing, the Avenger's sidekick/chauffeur, was the "unofficial eighth soldier", even though there were two sidekicks as full members. When Green Arrow was removed from the line-up Post-Crisis, and replaced with the sidekickless Alias the Spider, Vigilante's sidekick Stuff, the Chinatown Kid was added, so Wing was still the unofficial eighth soldier.

Pegasus: Sir Justin's horse Victory is essentially a Pegasus now, having been given wings by Merlin.

Really 700 Years Old: Sir Justin, the Shining Knight, has been alive since the time of King Arthur. With Arthur supposedly living in the 5th or 6th centuries, that would make Justin at least 1400 years old, though he spent most of those years in suspended animation before being revived in the early 20th century.

Telos, the initial villain of Convergence, recognizes this. He tells Sir Justin that he's the oldest specimen in Brainiac's collection, and he wonders how that will affect his ability to fight for his life against his chosen opponent.

Retcon/Remember the New Guy?: That whole thing about the Nebula Man? That was created wholesale in Justice League of America #100, along with the Oracle character. (Grant Morrison's series would later fill in the blanks through a bit of Arc Welding, see below.)

Series Continuity Error: The Shining Knight's magic armor protects him from bullets in early stories. Later on, he's knocked unconcious from blows to the head. How is this possible?

Short-Runners: The Soldiers were the main feature in Leading Comics for only 14 issues. The book was quarterly, so that was only a three and a half year run.

Sidekick: Two sidekicks are official members of the team, while a third is an unofficial member.

Super Senses: The hoods who work for the Sixth Sense get one sense enhanced as a part of his plan to steal five jewels. So one guy gets enhanced hearing, one gets super sensitive touch, etc. This is done through "hormone extract", oddly.

Superhero Sobriquets: the Wizard Archers, the Western Waddy, the Larruping Lariateer, the American Avengers, etc.

Super Team: The second one ever created, though they're not nearly as well know as the Justice Society.

Time Travel: How Dr. Doome recruits "the greatest villains in history" to be his henchmen, such as Napoleon or Genghis Khan. Thankfully, the possibility of Temporal Paradox due to removing these figures from history is avoided since Doome gives them a device that allows them to return to their own time if plans go awry. So every one of them escape when the Seven Soldiers defeat them and history is preserved.

Treasure Hunt Episode: The plot of Leading Comics #6 has the Seven Soldiers hunting for a lost treasure that they want to use for the war effort. The team gets a bit of Gold Fever, not because they personally want the gold for themselves, but because they decided to compete and see who could find it first. This, and a setup by the Copperhead, actually gets the team to think other members are trying to kill them, and they end up temporarily in a hero versus hero fight. Thankfully, common sense prevails in the end.

Author Avatar: Nobeard of the Subway Pirates who bedevil the Manhattan Guardian is unilaterally considered a rendition of Morrison himself. Nobeard's archrival Allbeard thus represents Morrison's hated enemy Alan Moore. Since Morrison is writing the story, Nobeard is the one who wins. ...Except for the subtext that Nobeard got exposed to radioactive material and got fatal cancers all in his body. But yeah, he came out of the fight alive...

According to Word of God, The Seven Unknown Men are all the authors who wrote themselves into DC Comics - meaning, of course, Morrison is among them (though not for Nobeard; he literally appeared as himself in Animal Man).

Badass Normal: The Guardian follows this trope, as does Sky-High Helligan.

Bishōnen Line: The Nebula Man actually becomes smaller when he returns as the Neh-Buh-Loh Man; he's clearly seen towering over the Soldiers in Justice League of America #100.

Blessed with Suck: Bulleteer. Alix didn't want to be a superhero, her husband did. She was perfectly happy with a normal life, and after she received her powers she had to quit her job as a special needs teacher, then discovered her husband's second life and in a fit of despair tried to commit suicide by running until she hit something strong enough to kill her.

Book-Ends: Morrison's issue #0 ends with the deaths of Greg Saunders's team of Soldiers; the conclusion in issue #1 ends with the resurrection of the one slain Soldier, Mister Miracle.

Breaking the Fourth Wall: All over the place in Morrison's version, as is his wont, but most apparent in the two scenes where Zatanna directly addresses the reader.

Incidentally, Morrison himself considers the Young Justice comic version of Klarion to be this. Why? Because he thought that version - best known for introducing himself as "Klarion... Bum, Bum, Bum... The Witch Boy!" - was silly.

Captain Colorbeard: The Subway Pirates in Manhattan Guardian - though their names are Nobeard and Allbeard, more all around descriptions.

Celestial Body: The Nebula/Neh-Buh-Loh Man. In Morrison's series it's explained that he was originally a miniature universe named Qwewq.

Chekhov's Gunman: I, Spyder's revamp in the 0 issue becomes very important in the conclusion.

Continuity Porn: Victory references an absurd number of minor characters throughout DC history.

To give an example: Zor is actually an existing character, appearing in a story from More Fun Comics #55 as a one-shot villain for The Spectre. But who would know that?note Unless you're a Doctor Fate fan - that issue was his first appearance. If you're curious about what happened, Zor saves some criminals from the Spectre, he introduces himself as a spirit that goes around causing evil, they fight, Spectre finds he can't win because Zor is older than him (this is before certain retcons), Zor disguises himself as the Spectre's human identity and kidnaps his girlfriend, Spectre asks for help from God, Spectre arrives at Zor's castle, gets paralyzed by Zor's paralysis ray, and finally tricks Zor into getting paralyzed himself.

Developing Doomed Characters: For 22 pages. Seven Soldiers #0 follows a team of fairly unlikable Z-list heroes who all die at the end, at the hands of the newly introduced main threat. The story of the real protagonists starts after this.

It should be noted that the artist for Bulleteer purposefully drew Alix, Sally Sonic, and every other female heroine in poses reminiscent of supermodels in just about every panel.

Eldritch Abomination: Nebula/Neh-Buh-Loh Man, for starters. The flesh-eating Martian mantis-horses, and many of the Sheeda's 'pets', also probably count.

Evil Is Sterile: The Sheeda are so incapable of creating things that they have to travel through time and pillage previous civilizations in order to get the resources to maintain their own. The series as a whole could be considered a meta-commentary on the comic-book industry's tendency to plunder its own continuity for ideas.

Expy: The Newsboy Army are an In-Universe one for classic Jack Kirby characters the Newsboy Legion, where the Guardian character originated.

The Fair Folk: The Sheeda were stated to be based on, and In-Universe source of the stories about, the Unseelie Court.

Genre Savvy: The Sheeda Queen deliberately attempts to kill any superhero team with seven members. The only reason she doesn't do it to the 'right' Seven Soldiers is that the soldiers never actually meet and form a team.

God Save Us from the Queen!: Gloriana Tenebrae, The Queen of Terror, is right up there among Morrison's biggest monsters, and very scary indeed. (Not that her husband was much better...)

Hoist by His Own Petard: As revealed in an issue of Bulleteer, Boy Blue summoned the Sheeda on the Iron Hand's behalf in #0 by blowing his horn; thus he unwittingly ensures that he's one of their first victims.

Horrible Judge of Character: The Greg Saunders team in the newer maxi-series did this; hell they hired I, Spyder, the son of the original! Sheeda Queen Gloriana made the same mistake. Not to mention the "new" Little Boy Blue who summoned the Sheeda to decimate the team. It's subverted in the case of I, Spyder, who only turns traitor at the end and thereby helps destroy Gloriana.

Ironic Echo: One of these connects Morrison's version with the Retcon regarding how the 1940s iteration ended, to wit, the Spider's betrayal of the 1940s team is matched and inverted by I, Spyder betraying Gloriana and thus helping the newer Soldiers defeat her.

Legacy Character: Bulleteer (based on Bulletman and Bulletgirl), the Manhattan Guardian (based on Guardian and the Newsboy Legion) and Mr Miracle. Shining Knight is an odd case (she's from before the original) and it's not clear if Klarion is meant to be the same character as the 1970s Klarion or what. And all of the Vigilante's ill-fated team.

Spin-Offspring: The short lived incarnation of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers #0 included the Whip III, granddaughter of the Whip II (a New Old WestZorro wannabe) and great-great-granddaughter of the Whip I (an Old West Zorro wannabe); I, Spyder, son of the original 7SoV member (and traitor) Alias the Spider; and Gimmix, daughter of Merry the Gimmick Girl and, therefore, niece of the first Star-Spangled Kid, who was also an original 7SoV member. In Seven Soldiers #1, the Bulleteer turns out to be directly descended from Aurakles, the world's first superhero.

Word of God is that Klarion is intended to be the same character as from The Demon comics, though from an earlier point on the timeline. After conquering the Sheeda, he uses Castle Revolving to go back in time to the 70's comics. However, it doesn't appear that any writer other than Morrison was aware of this, based on his subsequent appearances post-7SoV.

Mortality Phobia: Alix Harrower got her powers from an accident brought on by her husband's extreme obsession with his own mortality. Unable to cope with the thought of going grey or developing wrinkles, Lance Harrower tried to infuse his skin with a metal coating, but instead suffocated when the coating completely enveloped him. Alix herself became coated in the stuff after he grabbed her for help. Ironically, Lance ended up dying. The implication is Lance died because he took off his wedding ring, which meant the metal coated his entire body and kept constricting until he couldn't breathe. Alix survived because she had her ring on, which left a small gap on her finger so the metal didn't totally cover her.

One Extra Member: In the conclusion of Morrison's version, I Spyder acts as an unofficial "eighth soldier" and helps defeat the villain. Given that he was remade by the Seven Unknown Men, this was probably the whole point of the character both in and out of universe.

Painting the Medium: There's a sequence in Victory where Zatanna and a few friends go through another dimension, and the scenery shifts to compensate. The panels become cubes, for starters, and—it's remarkably difficult to describe.

During Zatanna's fight with Zor, he eventually starts ripping apart other panels, and Zatanna defeats him by falling through the empty space on the page so she can beat him to the future. Immediately following that, she tries to reach out of the comic itself, through a window to the Seven Unknown Men bordered with gears, typewriter heads, and colored ink.

Poor Communication Kills: The Iron Hand spends decades hating Greg Saunders, the original Vigilante, and even orchestrates the coming of the Sheeda and the deaths of Saunders's new Seven Soldiers team in the mistaken belief that Saunders was a racist after hearing him refer to one of the Hand's henchmen as "your kind." In fact, Saunders had recognized that said henchmen was a werewolf because Saunders was too.

Poorly Disguised Pilot: Morrison's Seven Soldiers had something of a prologue in JLA Classified #1-3 (collected in the trade paperback JLA: Ultramarine Corps), which introduced the Sheeda and the Neh-Buh-Loh Man (well, reintroduced in the latter's case).

Prophecy Twist: In Morrison's series, "The spear that was never thrown". It turns out to refer to Aurakles's descendants. One of them is Alix Harrower/Bulleteer, who delivers the final blow to Gloriana Tenebrae when she accidentally rams her with a car while struggling with Sally Sonic for control of the vehicle.

There is a prophecy that the Sheeda will be defeated by a group of seven soldiers, so they pragmatically look out for groups of seven and either eliminate them or run away when they can't win (as they did when they fought the Justice League). But no-one said the seven soldiers had to be part of a single group.

Bulleteer's fight with Sally Sonic involved the two beating each other with Alix's refrigerator. The entire Bulleteer miniseries seemed to be a nod towards Women in Refrigerators, as Alix is a woman whose entire life has become one tragic mistake because of her husband, same said for Sally Sonic.

Gloriana is almost certainly named for the titualar character in The Faerie Queene. Her obsession with preserving her youth and vitality might also be a nod toward the fact that the literary Gloriana was based on Elizabeth I, who spent her later years trying to conceal her advancing age in order to stave off calls for her removal.

Spiritual Successor: Has one in Demon Knights, which amongst other things reintroduces the cyclic nature of Camelot, as well as the Seven Soldiers version of Shining Knight fighting with six other bad-asses to stop someone from misusing a grail. Sound familiar?

Zachary Zor might be this to Alan Moore. He takes Zatanna and turns her into a similar, but Darker and Edgier character with a different name and consistently talks about his beard. It should also be noted that Alan Moore wrote the story that killed Zatanna's father.

Zor:It's a magnificent beard and you know you want one!

Alternatively, Zor could represent the readers themselves, as we often see events from his visual perspective (and we, like him, are always on the outside looking in) and one of the Seven Unknown Men comments on how he bet Zor didn't think he could bleed. This could apply to the READER not knowing he could bleed in a comic.

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